To
disprove the existence of a single, distinctive Historical Jesus is to blur the
single Jesus, analyzing him and dissolving him into the constituent elements,
so that we have a whole array of various men and myths, at various times, on
various crosses or equivalents, giving the problem of "too many genuine
historical Jesuses".*That* is
what it means to refute the Historical Jesus in favor of the composite mythic
Jesus.

The
Historical Jesus story is basically a simplifying, generalizing summary of many
events and many men.

We have a
complete and satisfying explanatory framework or interpretive paradigm that
fully disproves the conventional assertion that the Jesus figure must be based on
an actual, single crucified man more or less along the lines of the Gospel
storyline.

The
received view is that Christianity started suddenly and spread like wildfire,
and to explain this sudden shockingly unique Big Bang of Christianity, the
easiest explanation is a single crucified founding figure.The main thing keeping people in the
received view is the ignorance of a more satisfying alternative.

We now
have an Integral (multi-disciplinary), full, complete, satisfying, plausible
explanation of where the composite Jesus figure came from, that explains the
political and religious, mythic and mystic-experiencing sources for assembling
the Jesus figure.There is no
explanatory need whatsoever for a single founder figure, the Historical
Jesus.

This Integral
explanation must include elements of religious experiencing proper, but without
asserting that this religious experiencing was highly distinctive in its
era.

There was
a gradual coalescence of a somewhat new combination of familiar elements, driven
by a process of competition among social-political-religious supersystems,
particularly the system of Caesar (a hierarchy of honor and shame) against the
system of the cross that was both an inversion of the system of Caesar and a
straight amplification of it, including competing types of cross.

We can't
prove there was no single Historical Jesus, but we have conclusively proven
that there is no *need* for a single Historical Jesus to explain the origins
and rise and popularity of the gradually converging movements that over some
centuries came to be focused into a single religion, Christianity, with a
single, reified and back-projected Historical Jesus figure, a composite figure
that, like the Caesar cosmos-ruler figure, drew upon all possible empowering
sources.

Jesus was
a gradually converging composite cloud of elements who drew together his single
image or persona by deliberately and competitively drawing from the figures of
Socrates, Caesar, the hundred historical Jesus-like men, and many mythic godmen
and heroes.

When was
Jesus born, and when was his cross put together, and when did Christianity
start?Gradually, between 100 BCE and
500 CE -- not between 30 and 110 as the Bible-derived history would have it.

The
Bible's history and timeframe exaggerates how focused the locale and timeframe
and persona was; it says "just these years", "just these
locations", "just this direction of travel", "just this
doctrine", and "just this man", when in reality, the time span
was much greater, the locations were much farther apart and widespread, the
directions of travel were several and largely opposite, the doctrines were much
more varied, and the Jesus-like men and sources were much more
multitudinous.

The
history of the Christian origins according to the Bible is artificially focused
into a single point; the conventional Bible-based history of Christian origins
serves as a lens to artificially focus the multiple into the illusion of
singularity -- such artificial focusing was strategically motivated.

The job of
the mythic-only Jesus researchers is to show how this singularizing lens works
and dissolve these elements back into the constituent wide-ranging blur of
contributing elements and timeframes.

>I tend
to believe Jesus was a actual person....although historical evidence for this
is very obscure, unless one accepts the Dead Sea scrolls "Wicked
Priest" was in fact Jesus

Summarizing
the sense in which I reject the existence of such founder-figures of religion:

There were
100 genuine historical Jesuses -- that is easy.What is more or less impossible is that there was only a single,
individual genuine historical Jesus.That is the most precise, definite, and close-able meaning of
"Jesus didn't exist".

From what
little I've read, I tentatively assume the same about Buddha -- it's a
no-brainer that there in fact 100 genuine Buddhas or more who actually walked
around, literally.That's basically a
fact, not up for debate (being instead essentially a matter of
interpretation).What is probably
impossible, after some critical thinking and investigation, is that there was
only a single, distinct, individual, unique, lone historical Buddha,
exclusively deserving of the title "the Buddha".

If you
pull out some particular historical man, your same reasoning necessarily forces
many more actual men to be put forth as well.That is exactly what I mean by "there was no single, distinct
historical Buddha" -- no one man who towers far above all other candidates.In conjunction with this view, I also insist
that the only sort of Buddha that really matters at all is the spiritual,
psychological archetype in all minds.

Similarly,
there were 100 Jesus-like men, some named Jesus, but no one of them vastly
towers over the rest enough to be the lone deserving recipient of the exclusive
title of "the" historical Jesus.In conjunction with this, I insist that the only sort of Jesus that is
really important, the *real essence* of Jesus, is not any historical man or men,
but rather, the mythic man.

It comes
down to the word "essentially".As far as ultimate religious experiencing and transcendent truth and
insight is concerned, the Jesus figure is *essentially* mythic, *not*
essentially a historical individual or a set of individuals.The Jesus figure is essentially a composite
figure; the Jesus figure is *not* essentially any single man that existed.

Historically,
we can identify many specific men and many mythic and heroic and emperor
figures that contributed to the composite Jesus figure.By the standard of religious experiencing
and insight, there can be no justifiable reason for singling out any one
particular man as "the" historical Jesus -- to single out one man is
to sin, to utterly miss the point of the mythic figure.

Myth is
not really about historical literal events; it is a technique that sometimes
uses stereotyped events to comment upon the real concern, which is to reflect
intense entheogenic mystic experiencing, mystic ego death and rebirth.It is impossible in principle to uncover the
grave of "the" historical Jesus or Buddha because in principle, myth
is about the idea of particular incarnation, but emphatically not about any one
incarnation.

Did Ford,
the car maker, exist?Yes, but that
hasn't anything to do with the real purpose and function of myth.However, I am not as comfortable making
assertions about the historical Mohammed -- I don't know enough about Islamic
history -- false, literalized, official, or mystic -- to even delineate what a
radical theory of his nonexistence might entail.

The
existence of a historical Jesus is impossible in that it is meaningless and
incoherent.By my definition, if you
dug up a grave that matched every attribute of the Jesus story, I'd still say
he has no right to be called "the historical Jesus", because too many
other people and saviors and emperors and teachers and healers were too
Jesus-like to allow him the lone ownership of the single "historical
Jesus" placard.

>>Christianity
is not based on knowledge or on the historical Jesus; it is based on the Jesus
of Myth.

Official
Christianity attempts to be based both on the historical Jesus and on
myth.There is a spectrum of emphasis, with
interesting combinations:

Christianity
is based 100% on the historical Jesus and 0% on myth.

Christianity
is based 80% on the historical Jesus and 20% on myth.

Christianity
is based 50% on the historical Jesus and 50% on myth.

Christianity
is based 20% on the historical Jesus and 80% on myth.

Christianity
is based 0% on the historical Jesus and 100% on myth.

Words are
tricky: "based on" and "myth" and "historical
Jesus" are all variable wildcards that can be uttered in isolation yet
have opposite meanings within a network of word-meanings.I argue for the mythic-only Jesus, with the
existence of 100 historical Jesus-like individuals who were used as the partial
basis for the evolving Jesus figure, but no single lone man upon whom the Jesus
figure was ever dependent like a necessary kernel.

Would-be
"radical" thinkers such as Annie Besant (or Blavatsky?) are so bold
as to propose that the Jesus figure is 80% myth and only 20% historical.I could agree with that mix depending on how
it's defined, but as a rule, such thinkers as Besant clarify that (unlike us
true absolute "Jesus-myth'ers") they still assume there was a single,
lone, distinct figure serving as a necessary kernel, an assumption I consider
to be completely disproven beyond a reasonable doubt.

The
"lone Jesus necessary kernel" hypothesis is now unreasonable, since
Doherty et al.

The
hardest task for mythic-only Jesus proponents is to distance themselves from
the tepid, fence-sitting commonplace, relatively conservative stance of
"The Jesus figure as we know him today is essentially mythic, having
practically nothing to do with the historical individual, Jesus."I absolutely reject that quoted position;
the Jesus figure is purely and essentially, down to the bottom, entirely a
composite fabrication based on no one single kernel-like individual.

Historical
Jesuses did exist in spades, but no one of them warrants, by a long shot, the
label of "the" historical Jesus.

Instead,
the Jesus figure was a composite representation of experiences and insights
that were and are available in the intense mystic altered state after ingesting
sacred visionary food and drink, as patterned repeatedly in the theme of Jesus'
handing people food to open their eyes, and is also based on counter-Ruler Cult
-- a creative modification such as is typical of the times -- and on
astrological metaphor, and other domains of thought.

Scholars
must show all possible indications that Jesus was *not* essentially historical,
but they also have to show that myth is jam-packed with compelling meaning and
experiencing; Jesus certainly was myth, in the most substantial, positive
sense, where myth is allegorical expression of specific mystic altered-state
experiences such as were clearly available on tap in the Greco-Roman era, and
that specifically define the difference between the modern and classic eras:
unawareness vs. intimate familiarity with the intense mystic altered state and
the sacred meals that produce it, as are metaphorically described inside and
outside the official Christian canon of religious-philosophical writings.

_________________

The entire
issue is whether there was a *single* historical individual serving distinctly
as *the* kernel.There were 100
historical kernel individuals, not one outstanding one.Words are inherently ambiguous when in
isolation: there was "a" real Jesus kernel, in that there were 100 of
them -- not one outstanding, distinct, unique one.

Show that
there were 100 kernels, to show that there was not just a single outstanding
kernel -- the "lone kernel" is the conservative assumption that the
mythic-only Jesus advocate must refute.If you want a kernel, there is one, but rather, many: start with Julius
Caesar.The problem is now resting on
the historical Jesus advocates: demonstrate why it is reasonable to assume that
there was only a single, lone kernel of a single historical individual, rather
than 100 such kernels.

For a
plethora of historical Jesus kernels that effectively dissolves the idea of
"the" historical Jesus, see the thread

The Jesus deconstruction project will lead to my "81
historical Jesuses" problem.(An
overabundance of historical Jesuses
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JesusMysteries/message/3099)There were 5 historical healers, 3 esoteric
Teachers, 4 magicians, 8 rebel leaders -- so the only question becomes, was any
one of these so towering that he deserves to be considered *the* historical
Jesus?

Suppose there was 1 famous healer, 1 famous Teacher, and 1
famous rebel leader.How can you
christen one and only one of these saying "This one is the one", and
thus declare that the other Jesuses are *not* "the" historical
Jesus?We have a spread of historical
(in addition to purely mythical) Jesuses: this healer has 6 degrees of
influence and fame; this other healer had 4 degrees of influence and fame; this
rebel leader had 7 degrees of influence and fame; this other, historical
magician Jesus had 5 degrees of fame.

We have here a beauty and talent contest among a spread of
83 historical contestants.How can we
justify crowning one and only one of these men "the real Jesus" and
withhold the crown from the others?It
is thus equivalent to say that there were 83 historical Jesuses or 0 historical
Jesuses, but not 1 historical Jesus.

The quest for "the" historical Jesus amounts to
the quest for some absolutely compelling criteria for designating one and only
one of these 81 historical Jesuses as "the 1" that vastly towers over
all the others.Think literally
here.There really were actual men
crucified, there really were actual men who were magicians, there really were
actual men who were teachers.

Using a time machine, physically retrieve and bring these
men on stage in a conference hall.Now
there are 81 men on this stage.In the
left back are clustered the 7 actual healers.In the front right are gathered the rebel leaders, and so on.What criteria can we judges possibly use to
say that one and only one of these men is obviously and toweringly deserving of
the single crown that we have?

We are committed to crowning one man "King of the
Historical Jesuses".What could
possibly force us to pick one and only one of these fine men standing before us
on the stage, and reject all the others?The conservative answer is surely "the one that died on a cross and
was bodily resurrected".

Suppose such a man, is on the stage and he wasn't a healer
or teacher or exorcist or magician, just someone crucified under the charge of
being a rebel against Caesar -- does he still deserve the crown of "King
of the Historical Jesuses", or not?

Suppose none of these men, standing on the stage before us,
were resurrected -- can we still meaningfully assign the crown; does any one of
these men stand out in such a way that we are forced to give him the crown and
deny it to all these other men standing before us now on the stage?

The question becomes not "Was there any historical
towering single person buried under the mountain of figures?", but rather,
"Which views were actually dominant or most important for the popularity
of early Christianity?"By early
Christianity I mean pre- Constantine/Eusebius, 313 CE.

I completely support Doherty's work, the Jesus
deconstruction project, the discussion group moderators, and the Jesus
Mysteries discussion group.I also
completely support Freke & Gandy, and Acharya S.I try to constructively criticize and look for ways to improve.

>There were 5 historical healers, 3 esoteric Teachers, 4
magicians, 8 rebel leaders -- so the only question becomes, was any one of
these so towering that he deserves to be considered *the* historical Jesus?

>>I would like to be clear that we are making
categories for texts, not saying anything about historical Jesus(es).

I understand the project now.I fully support the project.My posting sounded critical or obstructive, but clarifying and
bracketing off the project will help.I
meant, and should have written:

*If* anyone carelessly assumes that the Jesus deconstruction
project is intent on finding "the" historical Jesus, be forewarned
that undertaking the project with that motive will lead to my "81
historical Jesuses" problem.An
example of such a mistaken approach is the book:

Jesus: One Hundred Years Before Christ

Alvar Ellegard

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0879517204

Ellegard's discovery of a "the" historical Jesus
initially seems like a solution, having found one candidate that fulfills
several requirements for the Jesus figure.I haven't read the book.If it's
any good, it should firmly demonstrate that *only* this historical person fits
so many of the Jesus attributes.

I suspect that it is possible to write many equivalent books
demonstrating that *other* actual men existed who just as well fulfill several
requirements for the Jesus figure.The
problem then becomes a debate about which criteria to use in selecting among
these various actual men, each of whom fulfills various requirements of the
Jesus figure.

Grigg's book, which I have but haven't read, would probably
address that problem of criteria for selecting among multiple actual men who
are candidates for Christ or Jesus.

Imaginary Christs: The Challenge of Christological Pluralism

Richard Grigg

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0791446484

Porter's book, which I have access to at a library, also may
focus on identifying the criteria for selecting among multiple candidates:

The Criteria for Authenticity in Historical-Jesus Research:
Previous Discussion and New Proposals (Journal for the Study of the New
Testament)

Stanley E. Porter

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/184127089X

Burton Mack is helping to lead "the seminar on Ancient
Myths and Modern Theories of Christian Origins".The seminar's project, or one of their projects, is "The
Christian Origins Project".

Mack's new book, The Christian Myth
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0826413552), in practice asserts the
incoherent Bultmann view: all the information we have about Jesus is mythical,
and, the only thing we can know about Jesus is *that* ("Dass") he
existed.I firmly reject that
combination as insincere nonsense and bluffing.If *everything* we know about Jesus is mythical, then *how* can
we know "that" he existed?Mack himself criticizes researchers who proceed through the gospel
storyline showing how each episode is only mythical, yet they retain the Jesus
character nonetheless.

Such a Jesus figure is like a man who lost an arm, leg, arm,
leg, head, and torso, and yet who we still talk about as a man who exists
though there is nothing left.Mack
himself talks about Jesus using expressions that clearly imply that there was a
historical Jesus -- where he could have used wordings that remain agnostic
about whether there was any such single, towering man.

Max Rieser (1973, 1979) is consistent: like Acharya S, he
asserts that Jesus, Paul, and the Apostles are all mythic-only.Mack is currently half-baked, a mixture of
conventional Christian thinking and would-be independent mythic thinking.His wording unnecessarily asserts that there
was a historical Jesus, even while he calls to suspend conventional
assumptions.

Mack fails, unjustifiably, to set a good example for other
researchers.Even more than Mack,
Rieser emphasizes that Christianity did not start in Jerusalem and expand from
there; it was invented in cities such as Alexandria, Byzantium, and Rome and
actually took a long time to reach Jerusalem.Mack may possibly emphasize the diversity of myth schools more than
Rieser -- Rieser does emphasize the continuous transformation of the Christian
myth.

There is a
bad theory of religion implicit in the typical historical-founder assumption.

When
someone affirms that "the historical Buddha existed" or "the historical
Jesus existed", what is actually being asserted?An entire questionable theory is implicitly asserted about where
religions come from, how religions work, what religions are about, how
religions propagate, how they are concentrated in certain influential
individuals who then transform and focus and re-propagate the religion.

It is true
that select, particular individuals do serve to focus and define
religions.Consider the theorist Ken
Wilber, for example.He is an actual
person who has worked hard to clarify and make viable the perennial
philosophy.The perennial philosophy is
an essentially religious philosophy -- a theory about what occurs as the psyche
develops to a fully developed state and what the ultimate relationship is
between the individual and world or transcendent cosmos.

Does
Christianity "come from" a single man, Jesus?What role does the "historical
Jesus" scenario assign to the postulated single man, Jesus?Conversely, what role do the
historical-Jesus deniers assign to, say, the twenty most Jesus-like actual
individuals?It is more subtle than
even I thought to distinguish between the historical Jesus theory and the
no-historical-Jesus theory.

It turns
out that both scenarios are actually quite intricate and potentially are highly
qualified, to the point of actually overlapping.The historical Jesus theory potentially has a surprisingly wide
range of different scenarios, and the no-historical-Jesus theory also
potentially has a surprisingly wide range, not a narrow range, of different
scenarios.

I am
coming to respect more fully the conclusion of some researchers in the Jesus
Mysteries discussion group, that the theory-categories of "historical
Jesus" and "no historical Jesus" are totally useless and
contribute nothing but harmful confusion.Everything hinges on what a researcher *means* by "historical
Jesus" or "no historical Jesus".

We can
only debate these scenarios if we establish an absolutely clear definition of
what we mean by those two labels, and I am finding that there is a disarmingly
wide range of discussion and debate involved in defining those two labels.It is very difficult to form a good
definition of what the "historical Jesus" scenario essentially
amounts to.It is very difficult to
form a good definition of what the "no-historical-Jesus" scenario
essentially amounts to.

Both
scenarios potentially cover a vast range of different scenarios.There is certainly not a single definitive
historical Jesus scenario, nor a single definitive no-historical-Jesus scenario.Both labels are totally meaningless without
an extended, subtle, and debatable definition.Yes, it is possible to define an Exhibit A and an Exhibit B, to
represent a reference point for the prototypical historical-Jesus and
no-historical-Jesus scenario.

The
prototypical historical-Jesus scenario holds that there was only one man who
fit most of the important parts of the New Testament version of history.Christianity is importantly dependent on
that man, and unthinkable without him; Christianity doesn't make sense as
religion or history without him.

The
prototypical no-historical-Jesus scenario holds that there was only one man who
fit most of the important parts of the New Testament version of history.Christianity is not dependent on any one man,
and makes more sense (as religion and history) without the complicating
postulate of such a man.

According
to "no-historical-founder" theories of the development of religions,
certain individuals do play an important role in some important but limited sense.Here is where it immediately becomes very
complicated, subtle, and intractible.The development, origin, and spread of a religion does importantly
depend on the actions of some select, distinctive individuals.

Conventional
thinking assumes Paul to have existed as such an individual; on more solid
ground, we should use Constantine as an example.The development of Christianity is largely focused in the actual
man, Constantine, as well as Luther, for example.Is the development of Christianity largely focused in a single
man, who we may label "Jesus", or in five or twenty more or less
Jesus-like men, such as rebel leaders (would-be military messiahs) or spiritual
teachers or hierophants?

We need a
new theoretic construct such as "degree of dependent focus".The prototypical historical Jesus or
historical Buddha theory implicitly asserts a very high degree of dependent
focus: the development and spread of the religion is very importantly and
significantly focused in just a single man whose life and role was like that
portrayed for the central founder-figure in the scriptures.

In
contrast, the prototypical no-historical-founder theory implicitly asserts a
very *low* degree of dependent focus: the development and spread of the
religion is *not* very importantly and significantly focused in just a single
man whose life and role was like that portrayed for the central founder-figure
in the scriptures.A problem I have
found in surveying all possible permutations of historical-founder and
no-historical-founder scenarios is the possibility of gradual degrees of
shading from one scenario to its opposite.

The origin
of Christianity could involve anywhere from one to an innumerable number of
actual Jesus-like men, with the role of a Jesus-like man ranging anywhere from
fitting all of the traditional story elements to only a single story element,
with any number of Jesus-like men fitting any number of the Jesus story
elements.We have an n-dimensional
potential space of scenarios.

How
helpful is it, really, to frame the search for true history in the simplistic
and inarticulate terms of "historical Jesus" versus
"no-historical-Jesus"?Many
scholars now have unearthed some pathetic actual man who fits a fraction of the
Jesus story requirements, and absurdly, have proudly pronounced that they have
found at last "the genuine historical Jesus".

Readers
then read the work and have to choose whether or not they feel this scenario's
man qualifies as "the genuine historical Jesus".When ten other such books are considered, we
see how utterly useless and purely confusing the whole concept of "the
historical Jesus" is.

It is
profitable to discuss the merits of particular scenarios, but framing the range
of scenarios in terms of "historical Jesus" has proven problematic and
vague beyond redemption -- however, it has led to finding that there is an
embarrassing overabundance of partially Jesus-like men, with no one single
Jesus-like man towering over the rest.Thus I see no alternative to ultimately ending up with the construct,
"degree of dependent focus".

The
problem with the prototypical historical Jesus theory is that it asserts a very
high degree of dependent focus that starkly contradicts the available evidence,
which indicates actually a *low* degree of dependent focus.Instead of debating in terms of
"historical Jesus" vs. "no historical Jesus", it would be
far more useful and relevant to debate "high degree of dependent
focus" vs. "low degree of dependent focus".

We can
thus usefully and precisely characterize scholars who assert a "historical
Jesus" even though each scholar picks a different man, with a different
combination of classic Jesus attributes: those scholars really do have
something definite and distinctive in common: they all are characterized by asserting
a very high degree of dependent focus on a single central Jesus-like man for
the development and formation of the Christian religion.

Similarly,
you can usefully and precisely characterize scholars who assert "no
historical Jesus" -- what they actually all have in common, across their
highly divergent scenarios, is that they all are characterized by asserting a
very *low* degree of dependent focus on a single central Jesus-like man for the
development and formation of the Christian religion.

This construct
of "high vs. low degree of dependent focus" concisely and elegantly
encapsulates, expresses, and implies everything that I have written about the
problem of the plethora of genuine historical Jesuses and about the Jesus
figure being "essentially and really" a *composite* drawn from a
deliberately extreme and all-encompassing *multitude* of actual men and
mythical figures.

That
construct really hits the essence of the difference in thinking style between
the typical historical-Jesus asserters and the typical no-HJ asserters,
overcoming the difficult blurring fact that both camps admit the existence of
multiple (more or less numerous) actual Jesus-like men who were more or less
important.We need a sliding scale and
a relevant polar axis.

The most
powerful, relevant, useful, and general way of sorting out the scholars is in
terms of what degree they propose Christianity was dependent on and focused in
a single Jesus-like man.Thus in the
end the most useful way to define what we mean by "HJ vs. no-HJ", or
"historical Buddha vs. no-historical-Buddha", is in terms of degree
of dependent focus.

What is
the most essential implication someone makes when they say "there was a
historical Jesus" or "there was no historical Jesus"?How can we usefully get to the essence of
what kind of history that person is asserting?By understanding the alternatives to be a high versus low degree of
dependent focus.

This
reframing of the debate is highly useful even though it still leaves us with a
subtle debate about what it means for the formation of Christianity to have
been highly dependent on and focused in a single Jesus-like man.

I consider
myth, correctly understood, to be the same thing as the highest aspect of
religion -- this is what I mean by "myth-religion": it is really,
most meaningfully and profoundly, allegory/metaphor for the intense mystic
altered state such as is triggered by sacred consumption of entheogens.The elements of this view can all be wrapped
up into the construct "myth-religion-mysticism".

The
official, dominant, low theory of religion holds that religions have a very
high degree of dependent focus on a single historical central founder figure to
whom is attributed the origin of the religion; the religion is based on the
figure and comes from the figure; he is "the central founder figure"
upon whom the religion focuses and to whom the start of the religion is
attributed.

The
religion is focused on him as founder; he is a personification of all that the
religion stands for.I here mean to
shut out the Paul figure, who is portrayed as a pillar of the Church, who
propagated the religion, but Paul is not the central figure upon whom the
Christian religion is mainly focused.The Christian is supposed to be somewhat Paul-like, but more importantly
Jesus-like.

The
conventional view of Buddhism fits this definition too: while allowing for
previous and later Buddha-type historical men, Buddha is held to be a single
outstanding man upon whom Buddhism is highly dependent and on whom Buddhism is
highly focused.The theory of religious
origins I dub "low" is that a religion proceeds from its central
founder figure.

The
Christian religion came from Jesus; it is based on the life, teachings, and
actions of the man Jesus.Such a theory
of where religion comes from and what it's about applies to the theory that the
Isis and Osiris religion is "based on" an actual historical Osiris;
according to this way of thinking, for the origin of the ancient Egyptian
religion, there is a high degree of dependent focus on the life and actions of
the man Osiris.

The
historical Jesus theory or historical Buddhism theory is not just incorrect
about facts of history; it is a bad theory of where myth-religion comes from
and what myth-religion is really about.Myth-religion in essence has nothing to do with historical
founding-figures, even when it is styled as emphatically literal.Buddhism and Christianity have often been
hyper-literalized.

Religion
really does have some literal elements; for example, the ancients deliberately
modelled actual politics and religion on myth-religion-mysticism, and they
deliberately formed mythic allegory in terms of actual politics and
religion.So yes, actual politics and
religion *do* "match" the mythic histories, but what is the nature of
this "match"?

For
example, I propose that not only was Christian myth-religion allegorically
based on actual crucifixion, but, in the spirit of ancient thinking,
crucifixion as a form of punishment was also deliberately based on mythic
allegory.The ancient mind deliberately
strove to make myth and reality closely match and comment upon each other, but
this is not to be confused with a "match" in the sense of the mythic
history being historically factual.

Their myth
and history were *mystically* the same, but not *literally* the same.This is true for many near eastern
religions, or religio-political regimes, but particularly true in Jewish
religion, which took the deliberate conflation of national history and mythic
allegory to as far an extreme as in any religion.It is not a one-way arrow -- that would be against the ancient
way of thinking.

It was a
two-way arrow between mythic-mystic allegory and literal politics and history:
as above, so below.How should we think
politically and historically?Look to
mystic-myth (archetypes encountered in the entheogenic intense mystic altered
state) for the answer.How should we
think mythically, mystically, and allegorically, in religion?Look to the realm of politics and history
for the answer.

The
domains of mystic myth and actual history and politics were used to inform and
guide and justify each other.This
interaction of two domains is the only possible way to fully account for both
the literal historical style and elements in, say, Revelation, as well as the
mystic-mythic allegory-domain.Literalism, or perhaps quasi-literalism, is essential and basic in the
Jewish scriptures, but so is mystic-mythic thinking.

Certainly
both domains are present, but we take literalism much too literally and need a
better understanding of how these two domains work together and interpenetrate
even while remaining distinct.Yes, the
Jewish scriptures are full of literalism, in several senses, but they are not
simply literalism -- more like a quasi-literalistic way of writing, reporting
on quasi-literalistic practices -- a subtle but all-important difference from
plain and simple literalist writing about literalist practice.

The Jewish
writings are an integrated historical-styled and mystical-styled mode of
writing about a integrated historical-styled and mystical-styled religion --
full of literalism, and yet, not literalist, just literalist-styled.Same with Christianity: it was largely
created as a literalist styled religion; that was perhaps the main contribution
from the Jewish religion, that hyper-literalist yet still just ironically
*quasi-* literalist mode of writing and practice.

Christianity
was the offspring formed by fusing many god-man Hellenistic elements with the
quasi-literalist styling of Jewish religion. Yes, many Jews and Christians were literalists, but many of the
most important were not.

Even our
category of "literalism versus mythic allegory" may be a poor fit
with that character of ancient thinking, which operated more in the mythic
realm because it was highly informed by the entheogenic intense mystic altered
state.

Literalism
was used as a style of religion, and surely most people were sober and rational
and could hardly deny the concrete reality they had to constantly deal with,
but compared to moderns with our various combinations of modern mundane reality
and absurd supernaturalism, the ancients instead drew from the realms of a
mundane world that was considered in light of mystic-state allegory, and from
mystic-state allegory that was based on the mundane world.

The
ancients saw the world in terms of two mirrors that reflected each other: the
sociopolitical world and the mystic-state allegory realm.Moderns instead view the world by an
unrelated pair of frames: the mundane, lacking any input from the mystic
allegory realm, and the free-floating magical-supernatural realm, without a
feel for mystic-experiencing allegory.

When
modern supernaturalists say that Jesus existed, they are combining non-mystical
supernaturalist thinking which the ancient mystic mythmakers didn't use,
together with an isolated mundane view of the world which the ancients didn't
use.Our modern categories of thought
don't fit with the ancient categories of thought, because our mundane world
isn't informed by mythic mystic-state allegory understood as such.

For those
who assert a low degree of dependent focus of a religion on the historical
existence of its central founder figure, there can be in principle no evidence
that is simple evidence for the existence of the founding figure, because
evidence for the existence of a man who is like the founder figure is not
evidence for a high degree of dependence on that particular man.

Thus
people who assert a low or high degree of dependent focus hold two different
models of how religions rise and spread, and these two models handle historical
evidence in two different ways.

To assert
a low degree of dependence of a religion on a historical central founder is to
assert that religions rise and spread based on the lives and actions of many
people whose lives are somewhat like the idealized central founder figure, with
no one man being exclusively important as the central, towering person -- and
therefore, any evidence that may be found, literary or archaological, for a man
who is like the founder figure, will be interpreted as merely evidence for one
among many men whose lives are like that of the idealized central founder
figure.

A key
question for debaters to consider is, what sort of evidence can cause a scholar
to change their adherence from one framework of interpretation to the
other?In this case, we must ask what
sort of evidence can cause a scholar who asserts a low degree of dependence of
Christianity on a single historical man to change their mind and assert a high
degree of dependence?

What would
compel me to say "I change my mind: this new discovery is strong evidence
that Christianity was, it turns out, highly dependent on a single, central,
Jesus-like man"?It would have to
be evidence not only that a man existed who fit the Jesus life story elements,
but that *only a single* man fit the story so well; evidence that one man fit
the story much better than anyone else and that the formation of Christianity
is importantly dependent on this single man and only on this single man.

What would
compel a historical-Jesus asserter to say "I change my mind: this new
discovery is strong evidence that Christianity wasn't, it turns out, highly
dependent on a single, central, Jesus-like man"?It would have to be evidence that no one man existed who fit the
Jesus life story elements far more than any other man.It would have to be evidence that the
formation of Christianity was *not* importantly dependent on any single man.

The
evidence from the no-HJ books, and even from the conventional HJ-asserting
scholars, adds up to just such a demonstration: it is clear by now that the
formation of Christianity was not importantly dependent on a single man who was
Jesus-like and who was far more Jesus-like than any other man.Scholars now have found a hundred good
reasons why Christianity started, but many of the reasons and scenarios don't
depend on the existence of just one lone man with a uniquely Jesus-like
life.

The
current evidence supports the hypothesis of a *low* degreee of dependent focus
of Christian origins on a single man, not a *high* degree of focal
dependence.Yes, the *claim* of
originating from a single man has often been a powerful advantage for some
Christian officials, and we could say that the success of Christianity sometimes
depended on the *claim* of originating from a single historical central
founder-figure.

But an
important dependence on the *claim* of literal historicity is quite different
than important dependence on the *actuality* of literal historicity.Some weak thinkers have said that
"Christianity wasn't a Hellenistic mystery-religion, because Hellenistic
mystery-religions don't literalize their mythic founder-figures."

That's
true, but considering the Jewish religion as being an unusually
literalist-styled, historical/political-styled myth-religion, we can now
recognize Christianity as a powerful fusion of the Hellenistic godman
mystery-religion with the Jewish literalist-styled, historical/political-styled
myth-religion.Christianity took the
godman and initiation themes and techniques of Hellenistic religion and added
the quasi-literalist, historical/political-styled techniques and themes from
Jewish religion.

Christianity
was a new Hellenistic mystery-religion that *did* literalize its mythic
founder-figures -- that literalization, that breaking the rule against
literalization, was precisely what gave this Jewish-Hellenistic hybrid a
competitive advantage over the purely mythic-styled Hellenistic religions.

According
to the Church officials, Christianity was superior to Hellenistic religion
because Christianity had *literally as well as* mythically/mystically, what the
Hellenistic religions had *only* mythically/mystically.Christianity won because it was based on a
literal godman -- but to clarify, it won because it was based on the *claim of*
being founded by and founded on a literal godman.

In
actuality, Jewish religion provided various combinations of literal and
allegorical messiahs; in this sense, there really was a historical God-ordained
Jesus or twenty of them.We must also
remember the similarity of the emperor cult, divine kings, apotheosis of
heroes, and the battle between King Pentheus and the godman Dionysus -- all
providing various combinations of themes about kings, godmen, saviors,
historical individuals, and mythic figures.

The figure
of Jesus was designed to strategically fuse all of these into a single figure
who wrapped up into one all the value of historical men such as Alexander and
Caesars, with all the value of the dying-and-rising mythic godmen, with all the
value of the quasi-historical Jewish priest and prophets and the actual Jewish
would-be messiahs.The problem was how
to fabricate a figure even more potent than Caesar, even more potent and
universal than the calculated and synthetic figure of Sarapis.

It was a
no-holds-barred utimate battle of extreme competitive hyper-apotheosis,
practically an arms race to create the ultimate nuclear weapon of cosmic
hyper-transcendent divinity combined with all the most venerated attributes of all
historical figures -- *many* historical figures and Jesus-like men and
Alexander-like men and heroic warriors, wrapped up into one figure, who was
later only threatened, I surmise, by the counter-venerated eternal cosmic
goddess figure of Mary, Mother of God and Queen of Heaven.

We should consider Jesus as a universal infinitely flexible
composite figure that can weave together an unlimited number of elements from
any noteworthy people, legendary people, wished-for people, or mythic
figures.That's what the State Church
Corporate Franchise needed, so that is exactly what they engineered.

No matter how well a particular historical man is like the
Jesus figure, I would say nevertheless that man is not "the historical
Jesus", who is essentially independent of any particular man.Would the Church want the Jesus figure to be
dependent upon a particular man?No, that
would pose a risk.They want a safely
abstracted and independent Jesus figure that they can completely define and
control.

Where did the Jesus mythic figure come from?The only answer that can be right is
"as many sources as the Church wanted and needed".Sometimes I have portrayed the Jesus figure
as coming primarily from entheogenic mystic experiencing, but that earlier
theory of mine is just as wrong as the people who think they have found
"the historical man upon whom the Jesus figure is based".

I reject the usual notion that the Jesus figure is
"based on" a small number of sources. Rather, he/it is a systematic construct that by definition is able
to draw from an unlimited number of sources of any type.So my hypothesis of the entheogenic
mystic-experiencing "basis" of the Jesus figure has to be just as
misguided as the hypothesis of the Essene teacher "basis" for the
Jesus figure.

The researchers who identify historical Jesus-like
individuals are contributing valuable knowledge but are distorting its
relevance.They need to make one
adjustment: don't say you have found "the historical basis" for the
Jesus figure; rather, say you have found "one of the major elements that
was used to assemble the composite Jesus figure".

In entheogenic mystic experiencing, I have found not
"the mystic basis for the Jesus figure".Rather, I have identified one of the major mystic element that
was used to assemble the composite Jesus figure.

Acharya S. is slightly off-base if she claims to have found
"the basis" for the Jesus figure in astrological worship.What she has actually found is that the astrological
religion is *one* of the elements that was used to assemble the composite Jesus
figure.

If James Arthur or Clark Heinrich or John Allegro claims to
have found "the basis" for the Jesus figure in the entheogenic plant
and the experience it brings, they have made the same classic mistake of
thinking that the Jesus figure essentially needs a single primary basis.

Even if the Jesus figure *happens* to have an identifiable
primary basis, such as a main Jesus-like noteworthy individual, or a desperate
entheogenic mystic-experience need for which Jesus fits perfectly, a single
primary basis is not what the Jesus figure is really about; is not how the
figure works as designed by the State Church.They needed a figure that is independent of all "bases".

Any primary basis is only *incidentally* primary.There may be a primary source for the Jesus
composite figure, but still the figure is not dependent on that primary source
-- another could as well have been chosen, if convenient.

Ultimately, the Essence teacher is just one more source that
the Church used to construct the Jesus figure.Astrological religion was just one more source for the figure.Entheogenic mystery-religion experiencing,
the dying/rising mythic godman savior, was just one more source the State
Church used to construct the Jesus figure.

The crucified rebel against Rome, or hundreds of rebels, and
the wished-for military leader?These
are not "the real basis for the Jesus figure, identified at
last".Rather, these are all just
one more source the State Church used to construct the Jesus figure.

It all
comes down to a distribution curve of Jesus-like men, or of Jesus-like
attributes among men.This
"distribution curve" idea neatly summarizes ideas I have posted at
length about what it means to say that some "Jesus" existed
historically.

To assert
that there was an HJ is to essentially assert a *narrow* distribution curve of
Jesus-type attributes among the men of Jesus' time and place.

To assert
that there was no HJ is to essentially assert a *wide* distribution curve of
Jesus-type attributes among the men of Jesus' time and place.

Everyone
acknowledges that Jesus-type traits were present to some extent in many men,
but what the HJ scholars assert is that these traits were prominently
concentrated in one particular person.These traits include one or more of: rebel leader, spiritual teacher,
healer, sage, wonder worker, and so on.

The
scholar who asserts no HJ says that the curve is wide, so that the most
Jesus-like man that existed was not *much* more Jesus-like than some other
man.If you travel back in time you
will find *many* partially Jesus-like men, many proto-Jesuses, many
mini-Jesuses, but no one of them will in any sense "tower" over the
others in influence, specialness, timely positioning, or reknown.

The
orthodox distribution curve has one man who fills the Jesus criteria so much,
he is a towering peak above an otherwise low level of background noise.By "towering" I don't mean
"great"; I only mean, more abstractly, that he *fits* the definition
of Jesus traits -- "distinctive" is a good word.According to the no-HJ view, the curve is
wide so that there is no one *distinctively* outstanding Jesus candidate.

Many rebel
Jews were crucified.Some of them were
rescued from the cross.Perhaps some of
them were thought dead, were rescued from the cross, and were discovered to be
alive.Perhaps one or more literally
died on the cross, yet became alive again.There were many spiritual teachers, many healers, and many sages.

Maybe one
man happened to belong to the set of men who was a rebel leader and a teacher
and was alive after crucifixion -- that man would have a pretty high
coefficient of Jesus traits -- but would he or would he not have a tough
competition from the *other* men who fulfilled several Jesus requirements, such
as the men who were sages and spiritual teachers?

The no-HJ
position amounts to saying that no one man stands so far above the rest, when
measured in terms of Jesus traits and qualifications, that we can say there was
"the" HJ in the singular.My
position is the broad-curve position: multiple HJs, multiple half-HJs, multiple
semi-HJs.

The HJ
scholars are all proposing some form of the narrow-curve scenario: they say
there were many men who fulfilled one or two Jesus traits to a moderate degree,
and there was one many who fulfilled many Jesus traits to a high degree, and
there were a handful of men who fulfilled a handful of Jesus traits to a
moderately high degree but certainly not as high as the leading man who leads
the field by a great amount.

I first
picture this as a centered bell curve, but better is a sorted curve: on the
right side, place the man with the highest coefficient of Jesus traits.Next to him, place the runner up: how great
is the difference?How steep is such a
curve?

oConservatives draw an infinitely steep curve

oHJ scholars draw a very steep curve
(something or other about "the" HJ they pick gives him a much higher
rating than practically all other candidates)

oNo-HJ theorists draw a relatively gentle
curve: compared to the highest-rated Jesus-like man, there are a good number of
other men who are almost as Jesus-like, or who are sufficiently Jesus-like to
render the whole notion of singling out one man problematic.

Although
this distribution curve width approach isn't a thorough analysis of all Jesus
candidates, it shows an end game or final state of putting forth candidates for
"the" HJ.The singleness, the
distinctiveness of Jesus is the entire problem, the issue.Today's criteria for HJ are a failure
because they are too easy to meet: there are too many men who, by these
measures, can be called "Jesus".

There is
no set of criteria that can fairly *reject* all but one man; either many men
make it through such filters, or no man, but it's impossible to define a set of
filters that will permit only a *single* HJ candidate to make it through.The singleness of HJ is the entire problem
at the end of such HJ questing.We can
easily have 0 or 100 Jesuses, but 1?If
Jesus doesn't distinctly stand out in an essentially conservative manner as an
obviously and manifestly lone figure, we cannot but end up with a whole mob of
Jesuses.

The more
we learn, the more we learn there are *too many* HJs but not enough
*distinctiveness*.The first loss of
distinctiveness happens the moment we reject supernaturalist thinking and the
resurrection.Given a field of men, how
does the conservative identify the HJ in a game of "Where's
Waldo?"

It's easy:
Jesus is the one who does miracles and is in the line of David and had a virgin
birth and healed and had mobs of people around him and threw out the money
changers in that famous incident and was controversial among the Jewish leaders
and was crucified by Pilate and died yet came back to life and then
ascended.And no one else did those
things, certainly not all of those things.

This is
how the conservative establishes a narrow distribution curve; Jesus is a very
high bar at the right side of the graph and although some other men are more
Jesus-like than others, no one else comes even *close* to fulfilling so many
Jesus traits; we have a low ramp and then an explosion up to Jesus as a lone
figure.

The
advocates of a particular HJ have the hardest scenario to establish: when they
reject the miracles and determine that there were many crucified rebels and
many healers and many sages, their hardest problem becomes the distinctiveness
problem: their HJ is significantly lower in the chart than the conservatives
say, and, the other men score significantly higher in the chart than the
conservatives say -- the distinctiveness of the Jesus figure is put in
jeopardy.

The
conservatives have a long list of qualifications and requirements that Jesus
must fulfill, so it's easy for the conservatives to point to one *and only one*
man who makes it through these superhuman qualification filters.In this version of "Where's
Waldo?", there are many figures, but one of them is very obviously
Waldo-looking, and none of the other figures look at all like Waldo.

Non-supernaturalist
HJ scholars have a much shorter list of qualifications and requirements for
Jesus candidates, so the looming problem for scientific HJ scholars is how to
let *only* one man through these filters.Their Jesus starts to lose his lead; the other contenders start to catch
up.This version of "Where's
Waldo?" becomes a game of "which of these many Waldo-like figures fit
*all* of the requirements posed for the Waldo figure, and why is he so much
more Waldo-like than the rest?" and according to these scholars, there are
some fairly Waldo-like figures but still, one of them is somehow obviously much
more Waldo-like than all the other somewhat Waldo-like figures.

The no-HJ
scholar says we should give up; the race is effectively an even spread, so that
the winner isn't *extremely* far ahead of the other contenders.Many men were named Jesus and were crucified
and were rebel leaders and were sages; how then can we say "this one but
not that one"?We really
can't.In this version of "Where's
Waldo?", there is an even spectrum with perhaps one figure technically
being *slightly* more Waldo-like than the next five runner-ups, but the scene
is filled with a good *hundred* or more figures that are definitely Waldo-like
to a greater or lesser extent.

This is
what you'd see time travelling -- an overabundance of more or less Jesus-like
figures, with no way to pick one as "the" HJ.There were lots of more or less Jesus-like
figures.This view makes sense, and the
conservative supernaturalist view is clear (we can easily imagine what the
conservative imagines one would see), but the scenario that is most hard to
picture is the liberal HJ view: just what kind of scene does the typical HJ
scholar claim we'd see if time travelling?

They have
to somehow indicate and highlight one man as being clearly outstandingly
Jesus-like, while supressing all the other healers, rebels, crucified men,
resuscitated men, sages, wonder-workers, hierophants of Jewish Mysteries,
spiritual teachers, and so on.The more
we know about the place, the more problematic it becomes to pick only *one* HJ,
to say "this one but not all those ones".

>>One
of the most ludicrous theories ever was the "Jesus was a mushroom"
assertion of John Allegro.Some things
are just too preposterous to bother debunking.

What part
of Allegro's theory seems ludicrous -- that there was no historical Jesus, or
that the Jesus figure is partly a personification of entheogenic plants, as was
Dionysus?

Allegro's
theory still stands and is worth serious consideration in conjunction with
other scholarship and puzzle-pieces.One book in response maintained that there is a historical Jesus and
that he did not administer visionary plants or represent them.I don't know if you buy into that
worldview.The Jesus figure was based
on various things, possibly including one or more historical individuals,
visionary plants, legends, mythic figures, Ruler Cult, and so on.

It is
tempting to state that Jesus was either a personified visionary plant, or a
historical individual, but that choice depends on too many hidden assumptions
about the formation of the Jesus figure.Given that the Jesus figure drew from an amazingly wide array of
sources, it's that much less controversial to include visionary plants as *one*
of the sources -- one among many.

If Allegro
holds that the Jesus figure was *only* a personification of the Amanita, that's
clearly misguided -- the Jesus figure obviously drew from other sources as
well; it was in the interest of many to integrate as many themes as possible
into this universal figure, including astrotheology themes.

Acharya's
portrayal of Jesus as essentially astrotheological, and my theory of his being
essentially about cybernetic self-control (representing the experiential
revelation of no-free-will) runs the same risk of focusing on one source to the
exclusion of others.The first
principle of understanding the Jesus figure is the principle of composite
construction, rather than single-source construction.

The Jesus
figure was not essentially astrotheology, nor essentially cybernetic
(no-free-will), nor essentially visionary plants.The Jesus figure was essentially a complex composite construction
drawing from all possible domains to create, in a highly competitive era, the
most broadly potent and powerful figure possible, in a kind of arms race of
extreme divinization.

A
worthwhile approach is to affirm all possible sources for construction of the
Jesus figure, and study the relationship between them -- for example, which
aspects of the Jesus figure were most important to the ancients, and which
aspects are most relevant today?The
Greco-Roman era was highly interested in astrotheology, and may have heavily
used visionary plants.

It is too
early in the study of ancient use of visionary plants to reach a sure
conclusion; this is the time to try to formulate plausible and powerful
hypotheses, such as supposing that 'wine' normally meant a visionary-plant
mixture rather than modern 'wine'.If
there is a strong case that ancient 'wine' was normally or ideally a visionary-plant
mixture, then the "Jesus is wine" idea lends credibility to Allegro's
"Jesus as mushroom".

However,
along with such a Jesus, we must also retain "Jesus as astrotheological
principle" and "Jesus as counter Ruler Cult".And I would argue that "Jesus as
no-free-will" remains important for all eras.The Jesus figure and the true history of Christianity cannot be
understood by considering only one source for the Jesus figure.

>My
vote is for the mythical/composite. ... there existed an insightful man whose
reputation grew to legend. ... it has become much more than it ever was.

>John
A. De Vito

>Author,
The Devil's Apocrypha

The
Apocrypha: There Are Two Sides to Every Story --

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/059525070X

The
Devil's Apocrypha: There are two sides to every story --

http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-25070-X

Your
paragraphs contradict each other.You
say you believe the mythical/composite scenario (as I firmly do), and then you
say there was *an* (one) insightful man upon whom the Jesus figure is
ultimately based.

I think
the definition of "mythical/composite" must be protected and
carefully reserved to mean that the Jesus figure is *loosely* based on *many*
historical people (and many mythical figures) -- *not* importantly or
dependently, crucially based on just a *single* historical person.

The
historical Jesus fallacy is the single-Jesus fallacy.There definitely were many closely Jesus-like men, with no one of
them uniquely deserving the single designation of "the" historical
Jesus.There were 100 historical
Jesuses, which is tantamount to saying that there were zero historical
Jesuses.The one scenario that doesn't
stand up is that there was 1, a single, historical Jesus.

You
misvoted.If you think there was *an*
insightful man upon whom the Jesus myth is dependently founded, you should have
selected "Myth based on Historical Kernel" rather than
"Mythical/composite figure".According to the "Mythical/composite figure" scenario, there
were *many* (multiple) insightful men upon whom the Jesus myth is loosely
based; if you remove any one of those men, the Jesus figure is not
significantly affected.

A
statistical distribution curve or bar chart of Jesus-likeness of actual men
visually portrays this distinction well:

According
to the uneducated Christian view, the bar chart only has a single bar -- there
was only one man who was at all Jesus-like.The only man that was crucified was Jesus, the only man who taught
wisdom was Jesus, the only man who healed magically was Jesus, the only
wandering prophet of the coming kingdom and judgment was Jesus.

According
to official literalism, the bar chart shows Jesus uniquely towering far above
the other Jesus-like men.There is no
doubt which man deserves the title *the* historical Jesus.Some other men are slightly Jesus-like, but
nowhere close to Jesus.This bar chart
has a low background curve and a distinct lone spike for Jesus.

According
to the "mythical/composite" scenario, there is a man who wins the
contest of "most Jesus-like man", but there are many other close
contenders, and it is nonsensical to assign the title of *the* historical Jesus
to any one man.This bar chart forms a
smooth curve with the most Jesus-like man closely bracketed by many very nearly
as Jesus-like men.

>>According
to the "mythical/composite" scenario, there is a man who wins the
contest of "most Jesus-like man",

But
because the contest is so close, which man is selected as "the world's
most Jesus-like man" changes depending on which criteria you use and how
you weight them or on the hotly debated and uncertain weighting criteria
collectively settled on by a committee of judges.If you think being an apocalyptic prophet was the most important
criterion for identifying the most Jesus-like man, you will choose one
candidate, but if you think being a wisdom teacher was the most important
criterion for identifying the most Jesus-like man, you will choose a different
candidate.

>>but
there are many other close contenders, and it is nonsensical to assign the
title of *the* historical Jesus to any one man.This bar chart forms a smooth curve with the most Jesus-like man
closely bracketed by many very nearly as Jesus-like men.

Below is
my summary response to the seemingly sound assertion that Jesus either did or
didn't exist.From the
[Christ_Conspiracy] Yahoo group.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/christ_conspiracy

I
mentioned Bible Review (sister of Bible Archchaeology magazine) before.Bible Review is the coolest Christianity
magazine.It's not devotional and not
overly scholarly, and not amateurish; it's like the better Historical Jesus
books.It's in the skeptical spirit of
Kenneth C. Davis' book Don't Know Much About the Bible, which I'm listening to
on audio CD.

They had a
giant Amanita table for the Last Supper on the cover, and in the same issue, a
centerfold of the Last Supper showing the female John so clearly, my Christian
friends were finally forced to admit that the unofficial tradition maintains
that the Beloved Disciple is female.I
have a nice collection now of female Beloved Disciples.I'm in love with John, he's so pretty and
delicate and feminine.

>Either
there was a real historical figure named Jesus of Nazareth or there wasn't.

That's
incorrect and insufficiently clear for debate.The entire issue and debate depends on what each person means by "a
real historical figure".The
debate and answer can't be in terms of "yes" or "no" as to
"whether Jesus existed", because the yes or no answer depends
entirely on what you mean by "Jesus" and how you define Jesus -- what
your assumptions are about the minimum qualifications for Jesus.

Jesus
existed: in fact a hundred Jesuses existed; our Jesus figure is a composite
based on many men.The real problem,
the hard position to defend, is that there was *only one* historical
Jesus.As soon as you let go of a single
point of orthodoxy about the historical Jesus, all bets are off; it becomes a giant
definition game and it becomes utterly meaningless what you intend by
"Jesus of Nazareth" until you define exactly what your requirements
for a "real historical Jesus" are and are not.

When you
define what qualities and requirements you hold for a man to qualify as
"the historical Jesus", then you'll find that too many men fit those
qualifications.The challenge then
becomes to invent a set of criteria that will let one and only one man through,
letting one man definitely pass through while definitely blocking other
men.You won't find one uniquely
outstanding Jesus; what you'll find is a large number of semi-Jesuses, lots of
mini-Jesuses but no *one single* outstanding historical Jesus.

So did
Jesus exist or not?The question is
meaningless unless paired with a definition of "Jesus".We can only answer whether a particularly
defined Jesus existed.I can only guess
at what you mean by "a real historical figure named Jesus of
Nazareth".Sure, there were
Jesuses in Nazareth; how do you single out just one of them as "the"
historical "Jesus of Nazareth"?

>As I
understand it, the contention of The Christ Conspiracy book upon which this
forum is based is that Jesus never existed and the Christian Gospels were
conspiratorially manufactured by professional myth-makers and delivered to the
political apparatus of Rome for the purpose of "pacifying the masses"
as it were.

There were
*many* hands and motives at work in the formation of the Jesus figure.

>I
think with respect to the final version of the New Testament there is
"some" truth to that. What I'm saying is that most scholars of
biblical literature--not pre- opinionated bible-thumping believers, as Kat
inferred, but objective literary scholars with no religious axe to grind—that
most of these literary scholars think there likely was a historical Jesus(never
mind whether he was amiracle-worker or
not), and that the early Christian literature spontaneously arose from a
grassroots level by people who were inspired by his story. Eventually many of
these biographical variations were culled and edited and dressed up etc etc
until at some point the political organization of the early Christian movement
decided to ordain a certain set of them "official".

>There
is an interesting article on the evolution of the early gospels currently
online at the Biblical Archeology Review ( http://www.bib-arch.org ) I
mentioned in an earlier post which makes it clearly evident many many anonymous
and forgotten individuals wanted to have a say on this matter. There has to be a
good reason for that kind of inspired devotion and I seriously doubt that
constructing a conspiratorial invention for Rome was at the heart of it.
Indeed, it is much more likely the stories were originally intended as part of
a rebellion against Roman rule in the Middle East but were later appropriated
and shaped by the Powers That Be who saw in them a charismatic potential which
could be harnessed for furthering their hold on power. I myself have no
allegiance to any "organized" religion for I'm too well acquainted
with the abuses of which they are is capable. On the other hand, I think it's a
mistake to throw out the baby with the bathwater. There is something
unmistakably profound about the story of Jesus. Indeed there is something
profound to many of the archetypal figures who preceded him in history. Who's
to say he wasn't

Who
wasn't?Here you seem to pull the
assumption out of thin air that there was a single, distinctive, unique man,
"the historical Jesus".Lots
of men exemplified the Jesus ideal in certain ways, we can assume.The problem with your word "he" is
that it points to one and only one person -- an unjustified move, a move too
fast.

>the
greatest exemplar of a very ancient tradition that focused on healing and
enlightenment. One doesn't have to be "brainwashed" or even
"religious" to appreciate that concept. Let's not forget, his gospel

Whose
gospel?Again you pull out of thin air
the assumption that there was a lone distinctive towering figure.Fine, but you should be very self-conscious
of what you are doing when you mentally construct this figure and project him
onto the screen.Just because you say
"his" and imagine a lone distinctive figure doesn't necessarily mean
that that matches reality.Be cautious
when pointing to "him" and "his" -- you may very well be
pointing to an abstraction of your own creation.

>was
that the Kingdom of Heaven is within and around us. We shouldn't confuse that
with the gospel of the apostles and Church fathers who eventually transformed
him into just another "emperor-god" to be worshipped as the Roman
Caesars before him were.

>I
think this forum is founded upon a very important subject which is why I
believe it shouldn't be agenda driven. I'm interested in the truth whatever
that "truth" turns out to be. I do think however think that it lies
somewhere between the Faithful of the Christ Mythos and the Faithful of
Inerrant Scripture.

I think that the two biggest questions that can sort out the
positions of the discussion participants here are:

1. Is there a single actual person involved in the Jesus
figure, or multiple actual persons?This is answerable in the form of a bar chart of comparative stature of
various actual persons, and in terms of matching component mythemes with actual
persons (the magician aspect of the Jesus figure corresponds with actual person
A, the crucified aspect of the Jesus figure corresponds with actual person B,
the spiritual teacher aspect of the Jesus figure corresponds with actual person
C).

2. What is the dominant, motivating origin: the actual
person (or people), or the myth?Which
came first in influence: the mythic figure, or the influential stature of the
actual person (or people)?Did the
mythic figure come first and give rise to attribution to actual people, or did
the actual person (or actual persons) come first and give rise to the Jesus
figure?

Or, did the influence work equally in both directions, so
that the mythic reified Jesus figure was built up by abstracting from actual
persons *at the same time* as the already existing (but not yet detailed)
mythic Jesus figure was being attributed to whatever actual persons could be
found who were in some ways similar to the mythic figure?

I like the phrase "loosely based on".The Jesus figure is loosely based on a
several noteworthy actual people, combined with several different myths. If you
eliminate any one actual person, the Jesus figure still remains.If you eliminate one mythic sub-figure, the
overall Jesus figure remains.

There is no single actual person upon whom the Jesus figure
is dependent -- thus there is no Historical Jesus in the sense expected by
liberal theologians. They expect one actual person upon whom the Jesus figure
depends, but the dynamics of the originating motive didn't work like that.

Picture a solid line coming from the sky and then splitting
into various dotted lines of various width that touch the heads of various
actual people. The dotted lines imply that the divine Jesus is independent of
any particular actual people, and that the Jesus figure is only loosely based
on, or connected with, or dependent on, particular actual people.

Did certain actual Jesus-like persons, through strength of
influence and personality, give rise to the Jesus figure?That is essentially the Historical Jesus
view.The most common HJ view assumes
there was a single outstanding actual person.A more pluralist HJ view assumes there were multiple actual persons from
whom the mythic Jesus figure arose.

Did the Jesus figure come from the mythic realm and become
associated with certain actual persons? That is essentially the Christ Myth
view (or "No HJ" view).A
slightly more conservative version, closer to the standard HJ view, is that the
mythic Jesus figure came down from the mythic realm and touched-down on a
single actual person.

Did the figure of Jesus first arise through the stature of
particular people, and then become deified? That's in the spirit of the HJ
view, but with multiple actual people instead of just one remarkable person.

Did the figure of Jesus first come from heaven and then
become associated with particular people? That's in the spirit of the Christ
Myth view, with the addition that there *were* some noteworthy Jesus- like
actual people.

I have some sympathy for the arrows pointing both ways. To
express this, I say the Jesus figure was "loosely based on" multiple
actual persons. He is abstracted out from them but not simply created by
merging the actual people.

The abstract figure starts from the mythic realm and comes
down, and he goes up by abstracting from several actual people, but only with a
dotted-line arrow that represents the independence of the Jesus figure from any
particular actual persons.

I am proposing two distinctions that this discussion group
should pay more attention to.Single
versus multiple actual people, and the direction of influence.Here are four clear, distinct positions that
the scenarios suggest as a most efficient way of defining the proposed
scenarios.

The mythic figure and the actual people should not be too
separated into earlier and later, with a 1-directional arrow from the earlier
to the later.I think the reified myth
*gradually* came into focus and *gradually* became associated with previous
actual people.

For questions 1, 1b, and 2 below, I list the conservative
(or Historical Jesus) answer followed by the radical (or Christ Myth)
answer.Then I list the 4 combinations
of answers.

Question 1:

Putting aside placement in time and looking only at the
direction of influence between mythic (archetypal) and worldly realms, did the
actual noteworthy people give rise to the Jesus figure?Or did the Jesus figure originate on its
own, being then attributed to the actual people?Another way of asking this: Was the Jesus figure abstracted from
noteworthy people, or did the abstraction exist on its own and then look for
noteworthy people on whom to project itself?

Conservative/ Historical Jesus answer: The arrow of
influence is from actual people (or person) to the mythic figure.The mythic figure resulted from the immense
influence of the actual people (or person).If the actual people had not existed, the mythic Jesus figure would not
have come about.

Radical/ Christ Myth answer: The arrow of influence is from
mythic to actual people.The
attribution and looking-about for actual people resulted from the immense
influence of the mythic figure.Even if
the actual people had not existed, the mythic Jesus figure would have come
about.

Question 1b:

Which came first in time: the actual people, or the mythic
Jesus figure?

Conservative/ Historical Jesus answer: The actual people (or
person) came first in time, and the myth arose afterward.A mystery-religion Jesus figure may have had
a shadowy existence early on, but it only became an intense image after the
noteworthy actual people (or person) came along to give it substantiality.

Radical/ Christ Myth answer:The mythic Jesus figure came first in time, and was attributed to
the actual people (or person) afterward.The mythic figure looms so large, is so superhuman, it overflowed itself
and was bound to be arbitrarily attributed to the best-fitting actual people
that could be found.

Question 2:

Were the noteworthy actual people singular or multiple?

Conservative/ Historical Jesus answer: There was a single
noteworthy actual person.He was most
noteworthy as a rebel -- or as a moral teacher -- or as a magician -- or as a
healer (but not really as all of these many roles).

Radical/ Christ Myth answer: There were multiple noteworthy
actual people -- one or more magicians, and one or more crucified rebel Jews,
and one or more spiritual teachers, and one or more healers.

The 4 combinations of answers to Questions 1 and 2 are
listed below, with some repetition and with labels for each position.

_________________

A. An actual person was the predominant cause, engendering
the mythic figure.A single person fit
the role.

First, a single actual noteworthy person existed.Later, his stature and influence gave rise
to the mythic Jesus figure.

The Classic HJ view: Direction of influence: from actual
person to mythic figure. Single actual person.Person existed earlier than the reified mythic figure.

First, the mythic Jesus figure existed explicitly as a vague
mythic figure, and at the same time, a single actual noteworthy person
existed.Over 100 years later, due to
the stature and influence of the original figure or the strategy of his
promoters, this all came together into a distinct mythic Jesus figure who was
back-projected into the not-too-distant past -- a composite of various mythic
figures, one actual person, and various legendary persons.

C. The mythic-figure was the predominant cause, engendering
attribution to an actual person.A
single actual person fit the role.

First, the mythic Jesus figure existed, explicitly as a
mythic figure.Later, that mythic
figure was attributed to an earlier single actually existing noteworthy person.

The Myth-First HJ view, or the dominant-person Christ Myth
view: Direction of influence: from mythic figure to actual person.Single actual person.The reified mythic figure existed earlier
than the attribution to the actual person.

This scenario is close to complex plausibility, because it
proposes variety and multiplicity for building the composite from myths and
legends, but then, inconsistently, assumes only a single actual person involved
in the composite.

_________________

D. The mythic-figure was the predominant cause, engendering
attribution to a person who was a composite of actual persons.Multiple persons fit the role.

First, the mythic Jesus figure existed, explicitly as a
mythic figure.Later, that mythic
figure was attributed to a single earlier person but that proposed person was
actually an abstraction based on a composite of multiple actually existing
noteworthy persons.

The mythic Jesus figure existed early, explicitly as a
mythic figure, before the reified Jesus figure was created.In that same early period, various multiple
actual noteworthy persons existed.Over
100 years later, this all came together into a distinct singular Jesus figure
who was back-projected into the recent past.

A composite of multiple mythic figures, multiple actual
persons, and multiple legendary persons was back-projected as though onto an
actual person, but there was no single actual person that matched, just a
variety of actual people that each matched the Jesus figure in one or two
aspects.

Will
people actually be persuaded by an astrotheological interpretation of the New
Testament that Jesus is mythic-only?The popularity of books such as Christ Conspiracy shows that many people
are considering the no-Jesus proposal seriously, and this demonstrates that
there is some rate of conversion from the default assumption of the historicity
of the New Testament characters.

I'm
skeptical about the persuasiveness of an astrotheological interpretation of the
New Testament, Revelation, or other apocalypses in refuting literalist
Christianity.However, I some people do
change from one view to another.Many
people have gone through some transformation of worldview from casually taking
for granted the historicity of the New Testament characters.

But my own
case might be making me skeptical about people's ability to change.I saw a book equivalent to Christ
Conspiracy, and dismissed the "mythic-only Jesus" hypothesis as
smugly and unthinkingly self-certain as entheogenists do, such as Clark
Heinrich used to.

Heinrich
is Exhibit A, a recent convert to no-Jesus; I pray that his faith grows strong
-- he will probably find it as emancipating as I did, to abandon the heavy
weight of trying to double-explain Jesus as being *both* an allegorical
personification of entheogenic experiential insight *and*, in addition, a
historical individual.One you have
enjoyed high-performance and sleek theorizing without the burden of the
complicating historical-Jesus assumption, it is hard to go back to that old
life of having to double-explain everything.

This
popular book evidently postulates a Jesus who was a historical individual in
addition to being an anthropomorphized astrotheological principle:

It is so
easy to dismiss "mythic-only Jesus" as not even worth considering,
when you've been used to taking him for granted for years, and all of the
established worldview takes his historicity for granted so that mythic-only
Jesus is practically an unthinkable hypothesis.I should write about my case (as previously in this thread or
group) because it is probably a rarer path into adopting the mythic-only Jesus
scenario.There are varieties of
"Jesus is a myth" views.

http://www.egodeath.com/christviewstaxonomy.htm

The
character of Doherty's "no Jesus" is opposite, in ways, from Timothy
Freke's, having no positive divine realm to take the place of the removed Jesus
character.

The first
book I came across leading me to no-Jesus was the refutation of Allegro's book
The Sacred Mushroom & The Cross -- that library didn't have his book itself.My card-catalog search was "jesus and
mushroom".

I
immediately ordered a used copy of Allegro's book from a bookstore and read it
for the mushrooms-in-Christianity component.I dismissed the no-Jesus component of John Allegro's book offhand as unworthy
of consideration.

I was
still close to Clark Heinrich's view in Strange Fruit, thinking that it only
stands to reason that Mr. Jesus *must* have used entheogens, acting as a
hierophant.The insight of the day here
was that if Mr. Jesus turns out to be a drug proponent, prohibitionists will
have to stoop so low as to take sides opposite of Christianity.These days I can word it better, as a
conflict between the prohibitionists and low Christianity on one side, with
drug policy reformers and entheogenists and high Christianity on the other
side.

Later, I
considered how Jesus rescues a person during control-seizure when doom and
destruction looms large like an inescapable deja-vu tractor beam: the rescue is
a purely mental operation, relying on the saviing *idea* of a divine savior who
already was brought to demonstrate and represent full self-cancellation of
personal will-power -- the divine idea was the active thing, and therefore also
having a literal historical Jesus was entirely superfluous, as far as this type
of salvation goes.

Salvation
from the throes of control-seizure is met by a divine *idea* or *thought* of a
savior, and is not met by a *literal* savior whose salvation is applied to the
regenerated person supernaturally and mysteriously.At that point, my historical Jesus started fading as an extra,
superfluous, complicating hypothesis.

Somehow I
found Doherty's Jesus Puzzle book.By
the time I discovered the books about no-Jesus, my own assumption of a
historical Jesus had largely faded. My website has quite a lot that clearly was
written under the delusion of a historical Jesus.The no-Jesus argument there and in the other books served to
merely confirm what was mainly dreamed up in the mystic state independently of
the no-Jesus books.

By the
time I discovered the books, I had developed such a strongly mystical emphasis
in my understanding of the Cross that I had no resistance to removing Jesus,
and removing Jesus was a positively strengthening and enabling move to
formulate the simplest theory of mystic experiencing and the Christian
scriptures.

Other
people fall into other sets of trajectories.Don't we all picture some "typical stupid Christian" who has
to be forcefully convinced?But so many
individuals don't follow that stereotyped and *possibly self-defeating*
conception of the trajectory.Are the
Amazon book reviews a reliable measure?That bothers me: the whole mode of debate in the Amazon reviews makes it
seem like the whole debate about no-Jesus is so shallow, so vulgarly unmystical
and wholly uninspired, like the book Jesus Puzzle.

Such
atheist debunkers are right, but they are wrong, remaining entirely ignorant of
mystic experiencing, that they fail to really recognize that myth-religion is a
fascinating and pattern-coherent expression of particular experiential
phenomena that are our heritage.It is
somewhat like people who haven't had sexual climax discussing that subject.

The
revised worldmodel from these atheist debunkers is so hollow -- but few are so
hollow, so stereotypically atheist as Doherty, so he contributes a valuable
flavor.Doherty clears away the old
content, Freke and Gandy bring in the new content, and I think of Acharya S as
somewhere in between, with her astrotheology -- an immensely important and
popular version of the Hellenistic religion.

We ought
to catalog the trajectories.What are
the top 10 ways people are converted to the no-Jesus view -- the mythic-only
Jesus view?But there may be more than
one no-Jesus view: from Doherty, who replaces Jesus with nothing, in
stereotypical atheist fashion, to Freke and Gandy, who replace Jesus with a
best-case New Age style of mythic-only Jesus.

It's
remarkable how successfully Freke and Gandy are able to redeem the New Age
approach, infusing the New Age sphere with so many key truths (no-free-will, no
historical Jesus, entheogen-positive, respect for Reason).So really, people have different starting
points, different trajectories, and different end-states.

One might
start as an athiest who (needless to say) originally assumed Jesus was
historical, ready Doherty's book, and end up as an atheist (wholly alienated
from the mystical mode of mental phenomena) who doesn't believe Jesus existed.

Another
person may start as a supernaturalist literalist Christian, read the spiritual
New Age books by Freke & Gandy, and end up a New Ager who doesn't believe
Jesus existed.

Or one may
start as an entheogenic mystic (of course assuming Jesus existed), and read
Allegro and James Arthur, and convert into an entheogenic mystic who doesn't
believe Jesus existed.

Those are
three different starting points, three different trajectories, and three
different end-states, even though the three people have in common *a*
conversion from the Jesus assumption to the no-Jesus assumption.The unmystical atheist remained that, the
devotional religionist remained that, and the entheogenist mystic remained
that.

So there
is not one trajectory, but a collection of trajectories, and though the
endpoints and startpoints have *something* in common, moving from some
Jesus-existed to some form of no-Jesus, much still is different, even in their
respective characterizations of the Jesus figure.

Hanging
out in Amazon, it is easy to fall into overgeneralization, which we must
avoid.Not everyone starts out as the
stereotypical halfbaked semi-Christian, and then due to the rational arguments
in the books by Doherty, Acharya, and Freke, converts to some uniformly styled
disbeliever in the historicity of Jesus.There is *not* a single trajectory.

People are
persuaded to convert through diverse means, and they start off from diverse
starting points, and they end up at diverse starting point.There is no one-size-fits-all trajectory of
conversion from the Jesus assumption to the no-Jesus belief -- and there is no
one "the Jesus assumption" and "the no-Jesus belief".

Neither
Freke nor Doherty believes there was a historical Jesus, yet they continue to
hold opposed views about the Jesus figure.Doherty thinks the Jesus figure is sheer folly, with only negative
worth; Freke takes the Jesus figure as transcendently valuable.

I am going
to specialize in promoting a certain range of conversion-trajectories.I want to convert people from the standard
view of religious enlightenment, which entails these key assumptions: free
will; historicity of religious founder-figures; elevation of meditation over
entheogens; and the non-rationality of mystic insight.

I want to
convert people to this other view of religious enlightenment.I don't have a useful label for it yet --
"the ego-death view of religious enlightenment".This view is: no-free-will; ahistoricity of
religious founder figures (anti-euhemerism); elevation of entheogens over
meditation; and the essential rationality of mystic insight.

My
strategy is to avoid the usual mode of striving to convince people about any
one of these points in isolation, such as the ahistoricity of religious founder
figures, and instead, lecture for those scholars who are already converted on
one or more of these four points.Every
scholar I talk to already believes in one or more of my key points: they
believe already in no-free-will, ahistoricity, superior efficacy and pedegree
of entheogens, or rationality of mysticism, or a combination of these.

My focus
needs to be on tightening up these four areas as a set, similar to the
Microsoft .NET project of rearchitecting various established technologies to
work together coherently in the Web-centric paradigm.What is needed is to rearchitect each of these four areas as a
coherent, integrated set of "technologies".

I have to
show, "Hey, the ordinary conception of the no-free-will position is fairly
sound, but if you like that, you really should check out this version of
no-free-will that I have fitted together coherently into a broader system,
together with adjusted versions of entheogen mysticism theory, anti-euhemerism,
and rational spirituality."The
Valentinians had a version of this wholesale comparison of their set of beliefs
against the beliefs of low Christianity or "the standard view".

I seek to
convert people from the standard state of assuming a historical Jesus &
crew, to some state of believing no-Jesus -- however, I seek to do this
*always* and explicitly not as an isolated project like Doherty, but as part of
a whole system, similar to Freke & Gandy.I am intent on doing four conversions at once, which could be easier in
some respects than attempting to retain 3/4 of the standard view while changing
just one isolated component.

It is
interesting to contrast the different no-Jesus scholars.*Which* no-Jesus worldview do each of them
proffer?